We were mind boggled to learn that there are 4,000 adverse incidents in Irish Hospitals every month.
Now we know the statistic is wrong. It does not include the 58,000 adverse incidents from Tallaght Hospital.
A very large number of intelligent, knowledgeable, people must have known of the “systemic failure” in Tallaght. Every medical practitioner who read a Tallaght x-ray and acted on that reading knew that no confirmatory reading from a consultant radiologist had come to hand.
“Irish Health” reports;
“The remainder of the x-rays to be reviewed and reported on are understood to relate mainly to orthopaedics, and further new delayed diagnoses are thought to be unlikely at this stage.”
I imagine the reason for this is the tendency for failures to detect bone damage in x-rays to come to light by the pathetic return of the patient to the hospital with exacerbated injuries from neglect of the original injury.
For more information see our Colour Supplement HERE
Have a look at this: http://www.hiqa.ie/news_releases/100310_backlog_of_x-rays_Tallaght_hospital.asp
And this today from the IHCA, indicating that consultant radiologists at the hospital sent more than 40 letters to management over the delays (PDF): http://www.ihca.ie/_fileupload/File/100310%20Tallaght%20Delayed%20Radiology%20Reporting%20Press%20Release.pdf